


Lines in the Sand

by aria0205



Category: Terminator Genisys (2015)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, first person POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-07
Updated: 2016-07-07
Packaged: 2018-07-22 04:53:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7420711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aria0205/pseuds/aria0205
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah and Pops gun smuggle and confront Sarah Connor's prime directive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lines in the Sand

The dusty road had nothing around it, just red desert at either side. As usual I had a vague sense of why Pops had brought us here, something about acquiring weapons, but nothing really concrete. I looked at him, but that was more out of habit. I knew there was nothing there to read anyway. No fear, no worry, no anticipation. I went back to the magazine article on my lap and read the same sentence for the millionth time.

I wasn't like Pops. My stomach was full of knots and I finally gave up on reading. It was the first time we were back stateside in a year and I couldn’t shake the bad feeling. Whether it was because of what had happened or some omen, I wasn’t sure. 

“Why are we here?”

“Enrique Salceda is a known contact of Sarah Connor,” he said, without turning towards me. “In 1990, Sarah Connor had him keep a weapons cache for her later use.”

‘Sarah Connor’ was my future self. The one who did things. I was just ‘Sarah’. “Why would he do that?” The dread only intensified. Things never went well when we dealt with people.

“My files do not say. Most likely, it is the result of Sarah Connor’s gun smuggling activities.”

I always imagined a kind of disappointment in his tone when he recited what my alternate self would do, but it was a ridiculous thought. Right now, she’d probably be buying lipgloss in her daisy dukes. “It’s not 1990. We’re more than five years away. What’s to say this guy would even hear us out?”

“Enrique Salceda can be convinced to stockpile necessary supplies.”

I frowned. Pops’ brand of persuasion started and ended with broken bones, and a whole lot of screaming. And this was an improvement.

“Don’t we have enough weapons?” I was pretty sure we did. I stopped keeping track, but had helped Pops outfit every safehouse with a hidden room for weapons that we proceeded to fill for the short time we spent at any given place.

“Negative. Enrique Salceda has resources to consolidate armaments. More importantly, he could serve as a vital link to a network of underground contacts after Skynet goes online.”

“If he decides to help us.” I paused. “Mission success depends on convincing Salceda to help me without having the prior connection that I will have with him in the future." I was still not quite fluent in his language even after all these years. "There are too many unknown variables.”

The ranch came up on you out of nowhere like a mirage in the distance. I don’t like it, I wanted to say, but didn’t.

“There is a distinct possibility that we are too early,” Pops said. “But it is a risk worth taking for the rewards if we succeed.”

I shook my head. “Let’s wait it out and contact him when he’s ready for it.”

“We will lose our advantage.” And that was the end of that. It was always about our strategic advantage over Skynet. Endless preparation. Contingency plan over contingency plan.

\--

Two big burly men with M16 rifles were at the entrance. Pops lowered the car window. “Get lost,” one of them snapped.

“Enrique Salceda.”

They looked at each other. Then one of them snickered. “What do you want with the runt?”

I knew a job for me when there was one. I put a hand on Pops’ shoulder and leaned out of my seat. He was always pricklier when I intervened, no surprise there. “We were just told Salceda.”

The snickering guard frowned. “By who?”

Like anyone would say. “None of your damn business.”

The guard laughed and looked at Pops. “Your little girl has a mouth.”

I squeezed Pops’ shoulder. Thankfully, all he said, was, “Yes.” I went back to my seat.

“What do you want with Salceda?” The second one asked.

Pops shut the engine off. He opened the door and the guards jumped back, rifles pointed at him instantly. “Easy there!”

Pops raised his arms. The gesture always looked strange on him, like it missed the point. Whether he had a weapon or not didn’t really make that much difference against real blood and bone.

The guards followed him to the back of the truck. I followed from the other side, squinting at the blasting sun. Pops opened the trunk, dug around the bottom and pulled out a panel. I could see the glint of several rifles.

“You’re gunrunners?”

“Can we speak to your boss already?” I said. “It’s hot out here.”

The first guard looked at Pops, “You need to teach your girl some manners.” He clearly expected Pops to reply, so I went with my usual script.

“He’s foreign. Doesn’t understand much of what you say. But if what we’re carrying is not interesting to you or whatever, then we can just be out of your hair.”

The rifle he was carrying came down so that it was pointed at me. I looked at Pops, telegraphing a tacit warning. Whether that made a difference or not was a crapshoot. “Or we could just take it.” The other guard pointed his gun at Pops.

“Sure,” I said quickly, before the whole thing went south. There was only so much manual override one could accomplish before the sheer weight of the calculations pointed to a swift elimination of the threat. “There might be more where this came from, but okay, I’m sure your boss will appreciate three more guns for his arsenal.”

“Who are you?”

“Suzanne.” This was routine too. As long as I kept talking there was less of a chance that I’d have to spend the evening digging rounds out of Pops’ back and exorcising images of mangled limbs from my eyelids. “My Pops is Bob. Are you really going to shoot me?”

\--

The guards got in their own pickup truck and we followed them all the way in. The ranch had a wide main building surrounded by several outbuildings around it, corrals to either side though no animals were in view. Just more armed men.

The guards stopped, they gestured for us to pass them and park. That done, they searched us both and had us follow them to the main building.

They greeted the other guards in Spanish. I could understand more than I could speak. “Gunrunners,” one of them said. “Have a stash they want to show the boss.”

The new guards’ eyes widened at seeing me. “Dangerous job for a daddy,” he switched to English to address Pops.

“Have you even looked at the price of gas?” I muttered.

The guard narrowed his eyes at me and I shrugged.

“He’s not from here,” the original guard said gesturing to Pops.

“So he lets his _mocosa_ do the talking?” the guard snarled. I took that as my cue to keep quiet. He switched to Spanish. “Joaquin isn’t in. They’re going to have to talk to the runt.”

The original guard laughed. “Didn’t you say you were looking for Enrique?” He looked at Pops. “You’re in luck. Go with him.”

The guard led us inside the main building and to a small room. “Wait here.”

The room seemed like a study, a sturdy desk to the far end. There were some mooseheads on the walls.  
And then he breezed in. Puka shells and flared jeans, straight out of a teen magazine. At most he must have been twenty. If I were ten, I would have found him cute, but I was fourteen, and already knew that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.

“What do you have for me?” He said without preamble.

“Fifty-six M16 rifles,” Pops replied. “A hundred and forty three smaller arms. A variety of models.”

Salcedo let out a low whistle. “Wow. Not bad for a family man. How much do you want for them?”

“We do not need monetary compensation. We seek your cooperation.”

“You talk funny, man.”

“He’s not—“ I started

“Foreign, yeah , I dig it. My cooperation in what?”

“Stockpiling a fraction the weapons,” Pops answered.

“Wait a second. You’re giving me guns so I can keep them for you.”

“A portion of them. The rest are for your use.”

I looked from Salceda to Pops. Salceda kept staring at Pops the way other dealers did. Like if they looked hard enough they could tease out his motivation or plans.

“That is the weirdest offer anyone has made me,” he said after a moment. “Until when?”

“1997.”

“That’s a long time.”

“There’s more where these came from,” I added.

“You should let your old man do the talking, kid.”

I flashed him a dirty look. “Why do they call you ‘the runt’?”

He narrowed his eyes at me, but continued to address Pops, “Can we talk privately?”

“No.”

I held back a snicker.

Salcedo ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I’d have to examine your stash. No question it’s tempting, but I don’t know anything about you. Even if I wanted to my cousin is the one who heads the operation here. I think you should take your stash and go.”

There was nothing left to do. We left.

\--

“Assess.” I closed the magazine in frustration. I had just managed to get into one of the advice columns. But if I ignored him I knew he’d keep on like a broken record.

“Assess, Sarah.”

I looked ahead, then around us on the road. Nothing immediate caught my eye. I looked further. We were driving through a more densely populated area. We slowed down and several cars passed us. I glanced at the rearview mirror.

“Figures they’d follow us,” I muttered. “Four o’clock. Yellow van. Tinted windows.” Salcedo’s crew hadn’t even waited a decent day before tailing us.

It was a no brainer what would happen next. We’d drive off some narrow road end up at some abandoned place. The thugs would get out. Pops would get out. I’d stay inside to hear a couple of shots, some incredulous yelling, an extra shot or two, then pained screeching, and we’d pick up and go.

We drove off the road until it was obvious they were following us. They could start shooting, but most of these dealers loathed the extra attention of an on-the-run shootout. We hadn’t been in one of those since the Thing.

To my surprise, Salcedo himself got out. Usually the big names don’t try funny stuff.

I got as far as putting my hand on the door handle, before feeling Pops’ hand close on my arm, gentle, but unmovable.

“Stay here.”

I shook my head. “He wants to talk. He wouldn’t take the risk otherwise. If you leave me here, you’ll never have him agree to help.”

“That is incorrect.”

“It’ll be much, much harder,” I said quickly. “You don’t have my ability to read nuance or to appeal to intangibles,” I parroted back at him. “If this was important enough to risk my safety to begin with, then it’s important enough for me to finish the job.”

I could almost see him calculating, running several scenarios to their logical conclusions. He released my arm and grabbed the shotgun beside him.

“What do you want?” I asked once I had stepped out of the car.

Salcedo flashed me an incredulous grin. “You do a whole lot of talking for a pipsqueak.”

I bristled. Pops went right down to it. “Why did you follow us, Enrique Salcedo?”

He grew serious. “I might be able to help you. Might. I want something more than guns though.” He waited like people do, counting on others to fill the blanks, but Pops didn’t say anything. I could have intervened, but didn’t. Finally Salcedo continued. “I need to know I can trust you. It’s clear you can get guns. Can you get men to shoot them?”

I crossed my arms over my chest. “You’re going to have to tell us a little more than that.”

He looked put off, I was still prodding at him. “Let me put it this way, my cousin will never agree to hold those weapons for you. Not for three days, much less for close to a decade.” He hesitated. “But I'm not my cousin.”

“You want his business.” I nodded. It wasn’t particularly surprising. Every one of these guys wanted more.

“My cousin is well-connected, but none of his suppliers will do business with me if there’s any suspicion that I’m behind anything.”

I snorted. “So you want us to, what, find you a group of assassins?” I shook my head. “You must be pretty desperate.” 

“Find me someone who will take out Joaquin.” Salcedo ignored me, looking straight at Pops. “You do that and I give you my word, I’ll hold whatever you want for as long as you want me to. Hell, it might be simpler if you do it yourself.” He smiled ugly. “Cut out the middle man.” Salcedo offered Pops a card. “Let me know if you’re in.”

\--

“We’re not considering it,” I told Pops as Salcedo’s car receded from view. “I don’t know what that Sarah Connor did in the 90s to become friends with him, but if it’s killing people I’m not interested.” I looked at my reflection in the rearview view mirror, as I climbed back in the truck. It was as bland as always, wide forehead, nose too big for my face, and the wreckage from the latest breakout across my left cheek. I thought again about that Sarah Connor, probably all flowers and bows in 1979, until her world went to shit.

I was way ahead of her.

“You’re being emotional.” Pops started the car.

I turned my head slowly to face him. “You did not just say that to me.”

“I did.”

I made a sound between a grunt and a groan. I'd had a lot of time to think about this as we went over it time and again. “If there was one thing, one thing that you should have learned is that killing is wrong. Point blank. There’s no rebooting, no get the spare parts and run it again. Nothing. A person dies and they are gone. Forever. There was no one like them and now there will never be.”

“This is an emotional appeal. Whether a human being is unique or not is irrelevant if the mission objective can be reached through their termination.”

“There is a reason,” I said pointedly. “That whoever programmed you made it so that was the only order of mine you had to follow.”

“Termination of human beings causes you distress, whoever programmed me was aware of that fact.”

I knew we were going nowhere and let my head loll back on the seat, closing my eyes. “Whatever you say.”

“In 1997, Skynet will come online. A massive nuclear war will be the result. The immediate aftermath will be catastrophic. Sarah Connor and John Connor survived it only because of extensive preparations.”

I’d heard this before a million times. “She’d draw the line at murder.”

“That is not known.”

I straightened up. “I know what I am capable of. And I won’t have you being a killer for hire. So unless we can find a way of avoiding that and giving Salcedo what he wants, we have to walk away.”

I snuck a glance at Pops. There’d been plenty of horror ever since the Thing came after me. People caught in the crossfire, and then after it went dormant and we went off grid, the people that underestimated Pops-- even after I’d ordered him never to kill. We weren’t clean—I wasn’t clean-- not by a long shot. Part of me wondered why he wasn’t mentioning any of it, most of me was just grateful and wanted to leave it.

“Besides, in that timeline, Sarah Connor was doing everything by herself,” I continued with a smile. “She would need allies wherever she could find them. I have you, Pops, and a stash of guns in every state from Washington down to Arizona. I don’t need anyone else.”


End file.
